POVERTY REDUCTION VS. POVERTY ALLEVIATION

 POVERTY REDUCTION VS. POVERTY ALLEVIATION

My dear countrymen, I know that there is a difference between poverty reduction and poverty alleviation, but I wonder why up to now, many top government officials are using these two terminologies interchangeably, as if the two are one and the same. No, I am not complaining about semantics or their wrong choice of words. I am complaining because if they do not know the difference between these two concepts, then it clearly means that they do not really understand the problem of poverty at all.

Although I am not a communist, I share the view of many Filipino communists that the government should not claim that the delivery of public services is part of poverty alleviation, because that is their function, to deliver those services. By my own definition, poverty alleviation is anything that anything that eases the pain of poverty but does not actually remove people from being below the poverty line. Again, by my own definition, poverty reduction is being able to remove people from the condition of poverty, in other words enabling them to graduate from the state of poverty.

As I see it, poverty alleviation is like giving pain killers to someone who needs surgery or giving Band-Aid to someone with a bullet wound. By comparison, poverty alleviation is the easier thing for the government officials to do, because it is not measurable, and it does not take too much brain matter to do it. poverty alleviation however is more difficult not only because it is quantifiable, but it also needs a lot of thinking to make it work. By quantifiable, I mean being able to statistically reduce the poverty rate.

According to available data, the government is aiming to reduce the poverty rate to single digits by 2028, and that means about three years from now, down from the reported poverty rate of 15.5% as of 2023. The government claims that it was able to reduce the poverty rate of 18.1% in 2021 to 15.5% in 2023, representing a decrease of 2.6% after two years. Based on the government’s target, it is aiming to reduce the poverty rate of 15.5% in 2023 to about 9.0% in 2028, representing a decrease of 6.5% after 5 years. If the government could succeed in reducing the poverty rate of 18.1% in 2021 to 9.0% in 2028, that would mean cutting the poverty rate by about half, which would be an amazing feat.

According to Microsoft Copilot, the “Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2023-2028 focuses on deep economic and social transformation to reinvigorate job creation and accelerate poverty reduction. The plan includes strategies to address inflation, socioeconomic scarring, and low income, aiming to create more job opportunities and improve the quality of life for all Filipinos

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